 My name is Rocio Ortega, and I'm the ProPublica Events Associate. Welcome to today's session, The View from Here, Reimagining Local News in Detroit. Thanks to McKinsey and company for their support of today's event. For those new to us, ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigative journalism with moral force. One of the last cities in America with two daily newspapers, Detroit is also home to several nonprofit news organizations. As the city's news landscape continues to evolve, these newsrooms have prioritized residence needs every step of the way, from centering local experiences when covering national issues to highlighting often overlooked neighborhoods. To discuss how these organizations are changing the way Detroit residents get their information, ProPublica has convened a group of passionate and innovative Detroit-based journalists and editors for a live virtual conversation. Catherine Kelly is a managing director of Bridge Detroit. For more than a decade, she served as publisher of The Michigan Citizen, a widely read and respected black newspaper. Candace Fortman is the executive director of Outlier Media and host of Newsguest, a podcast that explores practical advice from entrepreneurs changing the news business. Nina Ignazik is the founder of Planet Detroit, a digital media startup that tells Detroit's environmental stories and contributing editor with Detour Detroit, a weekly guide to navigating the ever-changing daily news cycle in Detroit through context and meaningful community engagement. Nicole Avery Nichols is the chief of Chalk Me, a nonprofit news organization for important issues, the effort to improve schools for all children, especially those who have historically lacked access to quality education. Nicole came to Chalk Me from a 20-year-plus run at the Detroit Free Press. Peter Batia is editor and vice president of the Detroit Free Press and Free.com. He joined the Free Press in September 2017 after two years as editor and vice president of the Cincinnati Inquirer and Cincinnati.com. Batia previously was director of the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State's Cronkite School of Journalism. Our moderator today is pro-publica reporter and Detroit resident, Anna Clark. Anna is a reporter covering issues in the Midwest. As an additional note, this session is being recorded and a link to the video will be emailed tomorrow to everyone who registered. Thank you all so much again for being here today and I hope you enjoy the session. I'll go ahead and let Anna take it from here. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining this conversation. I think this is going to be quite a lot of fun and we have a lot to discover in conversation with one another. Just a quick, a little bit of background about pro-publica here in Detroit. I've been a journalist in the city for about 14 years now. Most of this, I was kind of a rogue operator, freelancing, including for some of the publications that are represented on our panel today. In January, I joined pro-publica's expanding Midwest team. They brought in folks from Missouri, Wisconsin, soon to be Minnesota, while expanding also their office in Chicago. And I'm here in Detroit focusing on all kinds of stories here. Pro-publica is also a very collaborative organization. So it works in a number of ways with different local news outlets in the city and in Michigan. That includes through our local reporting network. We're partnering with Outlayer, which Candice is here representing. For a long-term investigative project, we also do a lot of co-publications, stories that pro-publica works on like that appears in a number of different publications. And we do some like straight on collaborations as well, co-reporting together in partnership with local news outlets. I'm actually involved in one of those right now. So with that said, we've got some wonderful voices here who are doing all kinds of interesting and thoughtful things. I also just want to acknowledge that there are many other folks who are, and many other news outlets that are doing wonderful things, interesting things as well too. We don't mean to be comprehensive here with this panel, but we do mean to kick the conversation started about how much is at stake with good, true, substantial, innovative, inclusive journalism here in this extraordinary and challenging city. And I think one way we might start this conversation is just like thinking about some, how some folks have grown some of the newer outlets that we've been seeing here. So one of them, Candice, I'd love to hear a little bit from you about how you and your organization got started. How you started cultivating Outlayer's presence in the city, building in relationship with the community in a lot of interesting ways. What did that look like? What kind of challenges were you facing as you did? We could take the whole hour to talk about the challenges, but instead I'll try to sum it up really quickly. I had the fortune of coming into an organization that had already been founded by Sarah Alvarez, who was our founder and editor in chief. And when I came into Outlayer in 2019, I was there to take the model that Sarah had built and figure out what we were going to do with it. Were we going to place it in a newsroom that had more sustainability? Were we going to build it out into its own organization? And we went around the world trying to figure out how we were going to do that, including entering into a merger at the top of 2020 that we decided to pull out of when COVID came to Detroit because what we learned through COVID is that Outlayer needed to remain in Detroit as an independent operation. And so, our greatest challenge was getting people to understand one, the model of reporting under which we operate, which is very different than your typical newsroom. We start first by looking at the information needs of Detroiters and that is how we build our beats of reporting. And from there, we also build our main news product as an SMS service that allows Detroiters 24 hours a day, seven days a week to be able to access it to get reported information on topics from housing to flooding, which is certainly something we never thought we'd be reporting on in Detroit, but here we all are. And also now, of course, building out a fully operational organization. We went from two full-time staff members and two part-time staff members at the top of 2021. And when we end 2021, we'll have seven full-time staff members and five part-time staff members with intention to grow that year-by-year over the next four to five years. So what we thought we were building when Sarah started, and of course, when I came in a couple of years later, is very different, but all of it is intentional because we understand that Outlayer's mission is to serve those who are most underserved in Detroit by news and also by systems, right? Those who are most underrepresented in power when it comes to building systems. And so that is why we are here and it's why we're going to remain here. That's so interesting, this idea of, like, you know, this cumulative vision-making, you know, like starting, you have your founding principles and how that can change shape as you meet different challenges, find as news evolves, right? As information needs evolve. Catherine, you're leading Bridge to Detroit. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the emergence of that publication in the city. We launched in May of last year about two weeks before the murder of George Floyd and the series of public protests that have erupted across the nation. It was an exciting time, you know, in the news world to launch. But it was also hard because it was also in the middle of the pandemic. So we're not in the shared space, like Outlier. Our model is a little bit different in that we have a community priorities model where we also put the focus of Detroiters. That is our focus in telling the news of the day. But to launch on all that was hard. But I've never found like launching. I don't think launching is really the hard part of news. I think the real difficult part of news, I mean, coming out of also my experience of the Michigan citizen and, you know, I've worked in media for almost 30 years now, but the really hard part is sustaining the newsroom. So, you know, with the Michigan citizens and it was in business for 35, 38 years that launched in the 70s. At that point, what was most important about being in media was consistency. And coming out every week for 38 years, that in of itself wasn't, and it's such an important organizing principle for revenue, for reputation, for, you know, just being a presence in the news world. But the business model was very much intact. Advertising model existed. You had classifieds. You had local small businesses that you could go to to advertise and support your media effort. But we're in this new moment. And I think that is like the challenge for all of us kind of moving forward. And it's, you know, certainly the challenge at Bridge Detroit. We are a nonprofit newsroom, which I think is a really encouraging model, especially for an outlet that serves residents in the city of Detroit. But I do think, you know, it's an exciting opportunity and something that, it's an exciting opportunity and it's something that a lot of really great minds are thinking about. Like, how do you serve readers? How do you serve residents? How do you continue to create quality content and deliver it? So we've been up for almost two years now and we're growing steadily and I'm just excited by what this holds. Well, it's really interesting how you're talking about like how the challenge, it's one thing to start something. It's another thing to sustain it over time, which is a beautiful segue over to the Detroit Free Press. Peter, you're representing a news organization that is older than the state of Michigan. How does one do it? Where's the free press at now? How do you see its role in sustaining journalism culture in the city? A good journalism culture. Sorry, muted. It's a really important question. And yes, we're the literally and figuratively the gray beard in this gathering. We've been around for 190 years. We're by far the largest media outlet in the state measured in by any measure, particularly by audience now. We have 50,000 digital subscribers and growing every day. But it's really important that we continue to think of ourselves as part of the news ecosystem in Detroit and Michigan. And when you look across this panel, Nina, I'm not sure how we haven't partnered yet, but we're in partnership with Chalkbeat, with Outlier, with Bridge Detroit, with Bridge Michigan and are constantly trying to do what we can from where we live. We are for profit, which makes us lowercase Outlier in this conversation. And I should say for the record, we're doing very well financially, but that, you know, cause people like to think that the free press and all traditional media is dying. We're not, we're changing, but we're not, you know, we're thriving. But we have to continue to build partnerships with all these new ways of bringing news and information to the community. And we take very seriously the fact that our masthead says Detroit free press. It doesn't say the Michigan free press. It doesn't say the Oakland County free press. It doesn't say, certainly doesn't say the Washington County free press or whatever. And we're working very hard to refocus a lot of what we do on the city of Detroit, which is arguably one of the most interesting places on the planet. And I am personally and institutionally, we are thrilled that these really smart, interesting startups like my colleagues here on the panel. And also in a national sense, which, you know, what Nicole is running for Chalk Beach, which is of course a national entity and a very important one. I'm still mad at them for stealing Nicole from us, but they are doing remarkable work on education across the country that's really important as well as here in Detroit. So from our perspective, it's about that larger ecosystem. It's doing what we can to make sure that journalism is thriving, that it's thriving in various and sundry ways and anything we can do to help that in addition to what we do on a daily basis and our work is really important. Well, you pointed out that most of our folks here are from nonprofit outlets, which is a pretty significant culture shift over the last, you know, 10-ish years. I wonder, Nina, I wonder if you could come into the conversation here and just talk a little bit about how you feel that nonprofit news outlets fit into this local news ecosystem. What do you think has a unique role? Do you think there's something like substantially different in the role that they should be playing in the city? Well, I think, you know, in some ways, nonprofit journalism has been around for a long time. We've had public media, of course, public radio. And what we're seeing now in recent years is this upsurge of more independent, boutique, smaller nonprofit media outlets that are really focused on a specific mission or a specific niche. And so I think that, you know, nonprofit journalism can, you know, it certainly is evolving, pro-publica changed a lot for nonprofit journalism and really helped elevate the awareness. I think that we can help be a part of the conversation of rebuilding trust in media and really elevating the idea that journalism is a public good and a public service. I think that's an important role that we can play as really small, somewhat unsustainably funded at times. Outlets, we can be nimble. We can respond to needs, but we can also try to fill gaps and partner with larger organizations so that we can be a part of that ecosystem and kind of be the, you know, somewhat of the blue that holds it together. But yeah, I think that, you know, that role of building trust is one that we can really play a strong role in. I think we're very mission focused. We're not to engage with advertisements, you know, we're not really doing a lot of entertainment media. We're really focused on issues. Just underscoring that idea of like that role of building trust. I mean, we all know that that's a pretty essential long-term project for all of us, you know, who are one way or another, like a face of journalism and, you know, either building trust or undercutting it with pretty much everything we do. It's pretty high stakes. Nicole, I mean, as Peter kind of alluded to, you recently made the shift. You made the leap from a traditional news organization to the nonprofit world. I wonder what you make of this, of like how nonprofit journalism, I guess, fits into this larger landscape and what the benefits are of these different models in building a trustworthy journalistic culture. Sure, thank you. That's such a, it's such a great question. I came to Chalkbeat about six to seven months ago. So I'm a newbie to nonprofit news after about 20 plus years in legacy media. And it was, it's a really interesting time and transition. I think that the pandemic taught me a lot about media and the value of diversity of voice and partnership. There were times in working on coordinating the coverage of Detroit and how hard the pandemic impacted every aspect of our lives. When we, as a newsroom at the free press, we weren't connected necessarily with the education system. So we'd have to reach out and partner with Chalkbeat or with community voices. So we'd have to reach out and partner with Outlier or with health experts. So we'd have to reach out and partner with Bridge. So I do think that being in the nonprofit space and this diverse, this rich culture of emerging media in Detroit and nonprofit legacy media sort of supporting each other and making sure that we are connected, holding each other accountable. That's also a piece of it, holding each other accountable and making sure that we are connected with our community and working on their behalf towards a public good. It's an interesting construct. My organization at Chalkbeat, we cover education. We are all over the country. We have nine different bureaus. We are really concerned with making sure that all children have opportunities for equitable education. But we are like today, this morning, the Chicago Bureau, we are partnering with USA Today on a project related to boys of color and some of the issues that have been seen in that area. We have a partnership going with the Detroit Free Press sort of watchdogging that those billions of Essar dollars that will flow into the educational pipeline in the city of Detroit. And we have sort of come together to watchdog that as journalists. So I think all of this, we are really lucky in Metro Detroit to have such a rich legacy of journalism. But I do think we really need to not only rely on legacy media, but make space for nonprofits to grow and flourish and find a way forward. Because I think what we learned as journalists during the pandemic is it just wasn't enough. It wasn't enough providing people with information at a time of disinformation and confusion. We need more voices in the mix. So I'm really happy to be on the other side and hopefully making a difference in another space and adding to that rich legacy of journalism in Detroit. I love what you're saying about there about how I'm championing this kind of collaborative ecosystem but also making sure that accountability of one another is a fundamental part of that, helping each other to be our best selves, basically. I think that's super interesting. I wonder if you could just add a little bit to that. I mean, as you're thinking about what, especially the pandemic era kind of revealed about what's not enough. And we do have so many people who are working really hard doing really creative things, but what gaps do you see? What would you love somebody to be drilling down into that at least that just has a lot more stories in it to tell? Sure, I think, and you bring up a really great point. So many wonderful journalists working so hard to be connected with community and work on their behalf. But I think what the pandemic exposed is how huge the story is, right? And we are looking for connections, like what are the things that we're missing? The coverage of public health consistently, right? The coverage of our education systems consistently. How people live, right? What jobs do they have? What do those jobs actually look like? What do they require? What does childcare look like? So some of these things maybe 50 years ago where we had beat reporters actually walking the streets and having these conversations with people outside of a digital construct that demands quicker, faster, get the conversation off, get the story posted, right? So some of those connections, that's what I think we found ourselves missing in March of 2020 when the pandemic hit. Coverage of city government consistently. Coverage of arts and cultures. What happens to the artists when the museums close? All of these questions, I think we found ourselves a little bit at a loss for sight lines. And then the pandemic rendered us invisible because we had to be separated from each other. Ooh, sight lines, I'm gonna keep that phrase. That's very useful, sight lines. And this idea, it's interesting that you mentioned just the idea of beats. Sometimes I think about these hyper-focused outlets, like Chalkbeat, like Planet Detroit, some of these like they're, it's almost like whole news outlets being built around a beat, you know what I mean? To try to get it, try to get, sort of get into the deep story, the nuances of it and build that chronicle over time. And speaking of kind of like big stories, I mean, I agree with Peter, this is an unbelievably interesting city. As we can see, there's so many stories that are important and meaningful and worth telling. I wonder like, what's the kind of connection between I guess like some of the, you know, like our local news, the city of Detroit and national stories? Like how do we tell national stories from like a hyper-local perspective? And I guess to that, at first I'd like, Peter, do you have something that you'd like to offer to that question? Well, it's interesting, I think, I mean, in many ways, Detroit is, I'm not quite sure how to phrase it, sort of a really robust microcosm of a lot of the issues that are going on across the country as they relate to race, as they relate to technology, as they relate to people, you know, trying to make a go of it, especially during the pandemic. I'm fond of reminding friends around the country that, you know, you wanna talk about diversity, you need to go to Detroit. You wanna talk about the EI issues, you need to go to Detroit. Not just because we live in a city that's, you know, almost 90% people of color, but also because we've got Dearborn right next door, which is the model, you know, I mean, got all the nonsense a few years ago about Sharia law being imposed there, and so on and so forth, but it's the largest Arab-American community in the country, and so on. So in many ways, we are blessed and cursed by the place we live in the sense that we can focus in on just about anything here and take it national if we want to. And it's interesting because I look, you know, of course I'm part of Gannett and the USA Today Network and, you know, admire their broad focus on national issues, but I'm much more interested in how the issue plays out in Detroit. And I'm more, I'm interested in the unique nature of issues in Detroit, whether it's, you know, whether it's flooding basements, whether it's houses being demolished, whether it's evictions, you know, all of the, of so many contemporary issues. So we all have our hands full in Detroit, but I think one of the opportunities for us in Detroit that frankly we need to seize on more is, can we look at some of these local issues and take them national, but covering the local issues themselves stresses all of our resources wherever our focus is. Just a quick note, I see there's some questions coming in. So I just wanna like just reiterate for the audience, like if you do have questions, feel free to put them in the Q and A. We also did get some really amazing questions submitted at the registration and we're gonna be getting to those at the latter half of this conversation. So please carry on the conversation in all these ways. We definitely want to be hearing what you're thinking about. But Nina, just to kind of put that same question to you about how do you see, how do you see from the organizations you're involved with with Planet Detroit, with Detour Detroit, how do you see bringing national issues or even international issues into a Detroit lens? Sure, I'll speak first to Planet Detroit. That's where I spend most of my time. You know, I think we had been, one thing I'm proud of is that we had been talking about flooding and flooding basements and infrastructure issues before the big floods of June of 2021. And in fact, we had just published a story a couple of weeks before the big flood, talking about research that had been done, showing that these floods are not just an inconvenience, they are a public health issue. So I feel like we were able to be on top of what is a national story and what is a global story, and of course, and that is climate change. And we're really trying to figure out how that is playing out in our backyards here in Detroit and in Michigan. And really trying to connect the dots between climate change impacts and public health. Because I think that people are starting to catch on that this actually has a real impact on our health in multiple ways. And so trying to understand and draw the connections between climate change, between air pollution, between flooding, housing, and all of the impacts and inability of Detroit's housing stock to protect Detroiters against some of these climate and environmental assaults is kind of where we've been focused. And then I'll speak a little bit for Detour in terms of the COVID story. Detour was very active in cultivating audience conversation around COVID and directly answering questions around COVID and publishing those and actually won three awards in 2020 for that work. So I think that it's a matter of these, everything sort of connected. I mean, both Detour and Planet Detroit published stories connecting COVID and climate change and air pollution and trying to understand how we can really bring it home, these things that maybe for so long we've been reading about on a national or global scale and not thinking impact us locally. How can we really figure out at the ground level how this is impacting people's lives. So that's what we're trying to do with our reporting. We're also trying to draw connections with other issues that are longstanding in the city like lead exposure and how that kind of those kinds of issues intersect with public health, with the ability to maintain health, maintain equality of life. What is the future of both our housing stock and the economics of that? And then also the impact on people that still, kids that still get exposed to lead and get left poisoned in the city and often have multiple items layered on top of that like asthma and other health issues. So that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to understand how these big issues play out within the small geography specific to these areas. The story is replicated in other cities in other ways but it only plays out one way here, one specific way here. And it's a big job to try to capture it and stay on top of it. So we're grateful to be able to do the work. It reminds me almost of an inverse of a old slogan instead of, what is it? Like think locally, act globally, act. It is. Think globally, it's always in relationship with that. Okay, trust has come up before too. And I think this is in many ways, a pretty fraught time to be doing journalism and to be in communication, to have a common base of conversation with our fellow citizens. I mean, Catherine, I wonder if you could weigh in on how you see local journalism responding to this kind of crisis of polarization in news. And kind of the add to that, just picking up on one of the audience questions I just saw, what is the role of journalism in really building kind of citizen power in the city? Really kind of like engaging in this space of civic engagement, I guess. How do you basically, how do you, in a fragmented journalistic culture, like how do you meet folks in a way that like resonates with them and even inspires their engagement with the city? I feel like the polarization of news is really dangerous for a number of reasons. It really caters to our culture's orientation towards entertainment, this kind of environment that we're in in terms of misinformation and disinformation. To a certain extent, it indulges like some of the worst parts of us. It's titillating and fun and we hear bad things, but it also allows us to believe that it trains us to think there's this like weird, things are good or things are bad. And I think the reality of most folks, most readers, most people we serve, it's not honest. And so I think when you're developing a newsroom and you're developing content, and you're not in a place where you have to create this sensational headlines or just these fun stories that get people clicking, like you're able to kind of tell those fuller stories and take the time to spend time with community meetings and with local sources, which really creates a kind of authenticity and trust. And people, especially black people, people of color, they know when you are telling a story that feels real to them and they will support you and respond accordingly. And there's not, I think, a higher respect or there's nothing greater that can happen in the newsroom when you establish that kind of relationship with your readers. And it's there because readers will talk to you, they will tell you, they will tell you when it's crap. So I think one of our goals at Bridgetrade is, again, moving beyond polarization, sensationalism, to really get at the harder stories, the more systemic stories to tell, what really impacts the daily lives of Detroiters. And when you do that and you give Detroiters voice, people respond. And I think that's kind of new. So it's moving news to a moment where people don't have to be entertained, but they can see their experience in the stories that you're telling. Nicole, you're working in the education, on the education beat right now. That is a particularly polarized topic, not just in the pandemic era, but especially I would say. How do you see local journalism having a role in dealing with that? And these like really heated feelings people have about news. Such a good question. And I can say that I've learned so much from working with the journalists at Chalkbeat, specifically about not falling in the trap, right? That polarization, I love how Catherine just categorized that as entertainment. That's gonna sort of stick with me. We are really, really about just digging down and providing our communities with the news that's necessary to have impact on their lives, right? And the lives of their children and the lives of teachers, administrators, et cetera. So the notion of one side or the other, like provocative type of news, sometimes that's almost easier than really digging down and doing the reporting, making the calls, connecting with community, making another round of calls to really get at what the nuances of the issues are. Particularly in education, we're looking at, like I mentioned, this unprecedented amounts of federal funds going into school systems all across the country. We're marked for things like mental health, for learning loss, to address those things, for curriculum building, to support nurses in schools, et cetera. These are issues that are so important to school communities. And as journalists, we just need to be there, connect with community and find out what they're thinking about the thing and what their needs are. As you say that, it just makes me really grateful that Detroit's one of the cities that has a Chalkbeat and I just want to cast my vote forevermore, for it to pollinate, yet more communities all over. Collaboration has been a theme that's come up a lot of all our organizations in partnering, finding different ways to partner with each other to make the most of each of our strengths. I can't, I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about how you see that collaboration is really fundamentally changing what local journalism is. Sure. So I've been saying, over the last couple of years, sort of like marching orders, collaboration is the future. It is the future of journalism. But fortunately, someone said it better and someone much smarter than me said it better and that's Grace Lee Boggs, who today we honor her death date. She died in 2015 on this day. The only way to survive is to take care of one another. And when I hear it said that way, that actually makes much more sense, right? And it actually makes it actionable. The reality is in order for Outlier to exist, for Bridge Detroit to exist, for Planet Detroit and Detour Detroit to exist in the same ecosystem, we have to be collaborative on every inch of the business, from the editorial side to the business side. There is not enough for us to figure out how to do something at Outlier and not share that resource with our friends at Detour Detroit or at Planet Detroit. We have to work in partnership. And that's a little bit different than, of course, what the news ecosystem might've looked like even five years ago and certainly before then. But we are all dealing with the same serious issues, many of which we've already talked about, the polarization of news, a lack of trust in institutions, which absolutely impacts all of our organizations. When we talk about trust, that's not just happening to news organizations, that's happening to institutions as a whole. And so as we start to all combat that, the best way for us to do it together, and as you start to look at some of the things that both Catherine and Nicole brought up, this idea that you need better arts coverage in the city. Outlier is not doing arts coverage. That's why we need Detour Detroit to be around. Outlier does not have the reach of the free press. That's why we need the free press to be around. Because when Outlier has an investigative story that we need to get in front of more eyes, that's when the free press is very valuable to our audience so that we can start to hold people accountable, hold government systems accountable. Collaboration is key to how any of us will be around in five years from now and certainly in 10 to 15 years from now. Well, in that spirit, just as we wind up this panel portion and get ready to hear from some of our audience members, I'd love to hear about a project or a story or a reporting method, an engagement method, something that you've really admired that another journalist slash news outlet did. Something that really stayed in your mind and something where you're like, just as a reader, as a citizen, you're like, yeah, that was great. That was awesome, I love it. I don't know if somebody wants to kind of, it has one right at the top of their head that they'd love to shout out. I see Nina. I'll give a shout out to Crane's Detroit Business for their recent forum on transit and let's see, hard stops. How much of Detroit's fractured transit systems make inequities wider? Like, I just, I think that would have been great maybe we weren't ready to however many years ago was when we had the last transit, regional transit authority millage, but to have the leading business publication take a stand like that, I thought was really, really good. I was really happy to see that. And I like the way they did it. They did a nice multimedia approach and they brought in multiple voices and beds and really talked to people who use transit and really made that connection. So that was mine for the month. I really, really like that. Yeah, that's an interesting one too, because it's the leading business publication, not just like framing transit as, which is a fraught issue in Detroit, those of you who might be new to, audience members might be new here, but framing it not just as like, a way to incentivize economic growth or something, but like an equity issue. I mean, that's interesting. Peter, do you have something you'd like to shout out? You know, there's so much good journalism being done in town. I'm just happy to be part of it. I mean, I think that the collective amount and quality and quantity of journalism that's being done in Detroit is really, really important. And from our perspective, again, as the sort of the old mainline establishment legacy, whatever you wanna call us, it's really important that we continue to do everything we can to support that. And as Candace said, to give outlet to really important work, but also to collaborate and to put our people together. You know, frankly, the thing that's taken the most of my attention in the last month was some of the work we've done on COVID and really being aggressive in calling out the truth about COVID. I think it's really, really important that all of us as journalists today, this speaks to the polarization question earlier, be truth tellers. And that can be controversial, but truth is truth, fact is fact. And what all of us are engaged in is trying to get to the bottom of what the truth is around these issues that are so defining of our lives right now. So I just continue to think that, you know, some of the feedback we got back from this work we did on COVID where we basically laid out over 10, 11 pages all the facts about vaccines speaks to the depths of the polarization. Cause there are a lot of people who just won't consider anything other than the hard fast opinion that they've developed. At the same time, there's still an important part of our society and a segment of our society that is reading and thinking and pondering and saying, well, maybe I need to, maybe I need to change my point of view on something. And we got a ton of feedback on that too. So that's very affirming of what we all do as journalists, people are out there reading. There are people who aren't absolutely in one camp or another or that this group is bad and this group is good or vice versa. That gives me a lot of determination to keep doing what we're doing. Yeah, I remember, I'm a subscriber and it was a special section, graphically highlighted the statistics, very good at getting some perspective on this. Catherine, do you have anything you'd like to shout out? I always have so much respect for the ethnic weeklies and the small, like not the low power radio stations because often they're just really on the front lines of getting nudes to their community and they're helping people and culture sometimes with language differences, all kinds of challenges to give them a place where they feel at home and where they can see their own community. Yeah, yeah, that's important and huge as we kind of heard earlier and it's particularly in this part of the world. Nicole, what would you like to shout out? I have to shout out two things. One, quickly, I have to shout out chalk beat for six word stories, right? So six word stories is an effort to engage student voices and we use that mechanism when George Floyd was murdered and we asked African American students and allies to write in six words how they were feeling. We did the same thing for Asian students after the spa shootings in Atlanta and what you're getting in addition to those six word stories, lots of video submissions, students in their own voices, essays, et cetera sharing with us how they're experiencing challenges, what their hopes are for the future and those things have been extremely revelatory just really hearing from a population of young people. I also do have to shout out the free press for their on the line podcast and the reason why when we talk about diversity and journalism, one of the reasons I actually came to the free press was their long-term embrasure of visual storytelling, video storytelling and now audio storytelling and to be able to go to a place and hear what Detroit sounds like and hear the cadence of Detroiters speaking. In addition of course to our public radio but I really thought I had been really impressed with that podcast just hearing Detroit during this pandemic has been comforting. So those two things. Yeah, I love how the common theme in both of those is making sure we're like hearing voices like the role of local media and not just like covering the communities but like elevating them and creating some space for folks to just say what they wanna say themselves. Candice, you kicked off our conversation. How would you like to end this? What would you like to shout out? Sure, I'm gonna shout out it individual person. Evidently arts coverage is my thing today so I'm gonna go with that theme and I am going to give a lot of credit to a young journalist working in the city, Imani Mixon who I think does some of the best arts coverage in this city. She has a beautiful way of looking at stories that have gone undertold. I look at things about her story about how techno is black. Her story on roller skating culture in Detroit long before people were skating over COVID. I was not included in that. Our health insurance isn't that good. And then also looking at her most recent story about the legacy of Aliyah who was Detroit born and bred of course. And I think that young journalists like that I want to find, I want her to have a home in Detroit. I don't wanna lose someone like Imani to a national outlet. I want her to find a home here in Detroit if that's what she wants for herself. But I really think that being able to uplift young journalists like her is really, really pivotal to making sure we have a strong ecosystem going forward. That's beautiful. And I underscore all of that. Imani, if you're watching, we're all fans. I think this is kind of the portion where we sort of switch over to hearing from some audience members. Yes, that is right. What a beautiful note to transition on. Thanks so much. And thank you, Anna, for taking us through that discussion. We are going to go to a few of our audience questions before the end of the session. So again, if you'd like to ask a question, feel free to click that Q&A icon below and submit that to us. So one of the questions we received that I think is very relevant is many organizations now are circulating a lot of their news online primarily. So how do you get that information to those either without access to the internet or those who wouldn't think to search for independent news sources outside of traditional media print, and especially some of our community elders who don't really access these news websites that often? Peter, do you want to go ahead and get us started on that? Sure, I may not be the best one to ask that question. Obviously, our main focus today is getting our news and information in front of people on the web. That's where our audience is. We've had meteoric growth in that audience over time. Part of that is because, of course, detritus are everywhere, everywhere in the country, and they come home. Even if it's to read about the lions losing, they come home. But print still matters to a large segment of the readers, mainly my generation, frankly. But so it's really important that we continue to evolve how we distribute information. Newsletters are a big part of the equation. Thank you for the shout out on audio, Nicole. That's a big part of the equation now as we look for more and more ways to get news and information in front of people. One of the challenges is that digital divide question. And I think for those of us in media, it's really important for us to be advocates within the constraints that we have to help get news and information to people in a variety of ways. Outlier has been a real leader in thinking about that, for example, in Detroit. So yeah, I mean, it's a big question. It's one we have to keep working on. And it's really, really important because getting reliable news and information in front of the biggest audience possible is absolutely essential, especially in these times. Thanks, Peter. Who else would like to jump in on that one? I certainly want to jump in on this. Outlier's entire model is based on basically this question. What is the best way to get information to people that makes it equal in access? But also is the most high-value, high-quality information needed in order for people to rise from crisis to steadiness, right? And so we have an SMS system, a text-based system, not because SMS or text is being developed right now. Like people have stopped developing technology around SMS. It is because it's the best way to reach most Detroiters. It also makes it also insist that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no matter where you are, you can reach a reporter from our newsroom. Because there isn't just reported information in that system. There is also the ability to always be able to reach a reporter from our newsroom. And that service is available in English, Spanish, and in Arabic. That is an important part of our newsroom because for all of us, for the future, it will require us to be product-minded. So even if you don't work in product in a newsroom, it is impossible to work right now in a newsroom and not be thinking about the product you develop for the communities that you wanna serve. If you have a community that you intend to serve, you've sliced out your place, you need to figure out what is the best way to deliver information to them so that they actually can access it. But more importantly, so that they can use it to make their lives better in some way or be more informed in some way. And also as I see one of the questions in the chat is about like this onslaught of information we all feel. We feel it too, certainly, right? Like I feel like I can't, I have so much information floating in my head. Sometimes I just need to know how do I go pay my taxes? And so that system is there to like cut all the noise out and say, I just need to know how I give Wayne County my money so I can save my home. That's it. And that system exists so you can do that. So there are products that can do that, but I also think it's about being in community, right? So leaving the newsroom and being in the city, being a part of the city, being in your neighborhood, being a part of that neighborhood is also a way that we can help to like slow down some of that digital divide and like have real human to human connection. So I'll be glad when real events can come back at some point maybe. Yeah, so you mentioned this idea of being in community and that's actually something a lot of our audience members asked about is what is the best way to be in community? You know, what are some actual strategies you can take to develop relationships with your sources, to figure out what it is they're wanting to learn about whether that be a taxes, you know, or that be a different topic. What are some of the strategies that your newsrooms use to really connect with folks on the ground? Well, because Planet Detroit is focused on the environment during COVID, we were able to get some outdoor events going where we visited some natural areas around the city. We had some tours of Bell Isle and Rouge Park and things like that. So I think, you know, just small groups of people in person, there's just no substitute for that kind of engagement. And admittedly, it's very difficult to do during COVID and expensive to do as well because it takes a lot of time. But I think those are the things that have left me coming away feeling like, you know, really connected with our readers. Yeah, Nicole, I wonder what are some of the strategies Chalkby uses, and you unmuted yourself, so you know what's coming to you. You know, it's, I'm going to go really simple. It really is, has been about showing up, right? Going to the meeting, having the conversation, staying to the very end, regardless of deadline, talking to, you know, engaging folks after the school board meeting or the PTA meeting, making the phone calls, you know, and not just when you need a source or need a quote, but to just check and see what's going on in the community environment, being actively engaged in the school community and a part of, right, the communities, to build trust, you know, and also to build sight lines and a relationship. It really is about relationships. I do think that we're an online publication and I do think sometimes digitally, it pushes us, it separates us, right? You know, there's a new cycle, we're all very competitive and accomplished, et cetera, but build, taking the time to form connections and be in conversation with people, I think that really helps build engagement. Yeah. And it helps in factual reporting as well. Oh, and we have so many questions about factual reporting that we could just go on for another 20 minutes, 30 minutes, but we're approaching time, so I just want to close on the question of, what do you all think is most urgently needed to report Michigan news, Detroit news more completely? You know, as a reporter's investigative expertise, is it something that you need from the audience specifically? Go ahead and jump in. Candice is like, two minutes, it's not enough time. I would say hold us accountable, participate. Call us when something is out of order, but also call us when something is great. We want to be in dialogue with our communities all across the country. So participation, that's what we need. And also more reporters, always more reporters. Yeah, more reporters. More reporters, absolutely. And I would just say, now that I've gotten over my initial shock of the question, sign up for Detroit Documenters. Go to DetroitDocumenters.org and sign up to become a documentary, run this program where we train and pay Detroiters to go to public meetings, take notes at public meetings, city board meetings, education meetings, and you will be assisting all of these newsrooms on the screen with their reporting. We need you, please sign up. There you go. I mean, Peter, go ahead, close us out. Oh yeah, no editor would ever tell you they have enough people. And I'm certainly at the front of the line on that question. But again, we live in such a unique place. And we just need to be on to Nicole's point. We just need to be on the street. We need to be talking to people. We've started coverage initiatives that are just about being on the streets of Detroit and talking to people. And I'm not, I just think we have a base of reporting in Detroit that is way better than other places because of all the people who are here today and others. But we have to continue to be relentless about that. And the community, part of reengaging with the community is getting the community to be as equally as relentless as engaging in engaging with us. And tell us when we're doing great and tell us when we're not. But I am very optimistic about journalism in Detroit. The ecosystem here is fantastic. The folks on this call or on this Zoom are fantastic. And I think there's a great future ahead for journalism in Detroit. I want to note to close out on, well, that's our time for today. I want to thank all of our panelists, Catherine Kelly, Candace Fortman, Nina Ignazak, Nicole Avery Nichols, and Peter Batia for this excellent conversation. And of course our moderator, Anna Clark. I'd like to give a special thank you again to McKinsey and Company for the support of today's event. And thank you to our audience for joining us and for your thoughtful questions. We received so many and we could have gone on for hours. But again, this event has been recorded so you'll receive an email tomorrow with a full video of today's event to everyone who registered. We'll also post this recording on our YouTube channel. So from all of us at ProPublica, thank you so much for joining us. Have a great rest of your afternoon and we'll see you very soon.